Vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives over the past half century, health experts estimate

An international team of health and medical researchers and World Health Organization (WHO) workers found that the use of vaccines to prevent or treat disease has saved the lives of an estimated 154 million people over the past half century .

In their study, published earlier this month in the journal The Lancetthe group used mathematical and statistical modeling to come up with estimates of lives saved by vaccines and then added them up to find the total.

The team’s aim was to assess the success of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) launched by the WHO in 1974.

The program aimed to vaccinate all children in the world against the most common deadly diseases. At first the list included seven diseases; it has since been expanded to 14.

As part of this effort, research was conducted to develop vaccines, test them, and then use them after they were found to be both safe and effective.

Since its inception, the EPV program has led to the development of numerous vaccines and the immunization of millions of people, preventing suffering and death.

In this new effort, the research team tried to find out how successful the program was.

The research involved the collection and analysis of data at local, regional and global levels. As part of this effort, the researchers created 22 models based on 50 years of vaccination data for people around the world.

The team then used the models to estimate lives saved and found the total to be about 154 million since 1974.

The authors also found that children in particular benefited the most from vaccination – 101 million lives saved were under the age of 1.

They also found evidence that vaccination programs have had a major impact on infant mortality rates – over the past half century, rates have fallen globally by 40%.

The researchers also found that the measles vaccine had the biggest impact – it was responsible for 60% of the lives saved.

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